Pages

Wednesday, 14 October 2015

Belarusian, Svetlana Alexievich is the Nobel Laureate in Literature 2015

The Nobel Prize in
Literature 2015 was awarded to Svetlana Alexievich "for her polyphonic
writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time."

Svetlana Alexievich, b. 1948

Svetlana Alexievich was born 31 May 1948 in the Ukrainian town of
Ivano-Frankivsk, as the daughter of a Belarusian father and a Ukrainian mother.
When the father had completed his military service, the family moved to
Belarus, where both parents worked as teachers. After finishing school,
Alexievich worked as a teacher and as a journalist, and she studied journalism
at the University of Minsk between 1967 and 1972.After her graduation she was referred to a
local newspaper in Brest near the Polish border, because of her oppositional
views. She later returned to Minsk and began an employment at the newspaper Sel'skaja Gazeta. For many years, she
collected materials for her first book U
vojny ne ženskoe lico (1985; War's
Unwomanly Face, 1988), which is based on interviews with hundreds
of women who participated in the Second World War. This work is the first in
Alexievich's grand cycle of books, "Voices of Utopia", where life in
the Soviet Union is depicted from the perspective of the individual. By means of her extraordinary method – a
carefully composed collage of human voices – Alexievich deepens our
comprehension of an entire era. The consequences of the nuclear disaster in
Chernobyl 1986 is the topic of Černobyl'skaja
molitva (1997; Voices from
Chernobyl – Chronicle of the Future, 1999). Cinkovye mal'čiki(1990; Zinky Boys – Soviet voices from a forgotten war,
1992) is a portrayal of the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan 1979–89, and her
work Vremja second chènd (2013;
"Second-hand Time: The Demise of the Red (Wo)man") is the latest in "Voices of
Utopia". Another early book that also belongs in this lifelong project is Poslednie svideteli (1985; "Last
witnesses").Important influences on Alexievich's work are
the notes by the nurse and author Sofia Fedorchenko (1888–1959) of soldiers'
experiences in the First World War, and the documentary reports by the
Belarusian author Ales Adamovich (1927–1994) from the Second World War. Because
of her criticism of the regime, Alexievich has periodically lived abroad, in
Italy, France, Germany, and Sweden, among other places.Bibliography – a
selectionWorks in RussianУ войны не женское лицо. Минск: Мастацкая литература 1985
2-е изд.: Москва: Время 2015U vojny ne ženskoe lico. –
Minsk : Mastackaja litaratura, 1985.
Rev. ed.: – Moskva : Vremja, 2015Последние свидетели:
книга недетских рассказов. Москва:
Молодая гвардия 1985.
2-е изд.: Последние свидетели: соло для
детского голоса. Москва: Время 2013 Poslednie svideteli: kniga nedetskich rasskazov. – Moskva :
Molodaja gvardija, 1985
Rev. ed.: Poslednie svideteli : solo dlja detskogo golosa. – Moskva :
Vremja, 2013